Smoke could be seen all around Statesboro when Wednesday's prescribed burn in the Herty Pines Forest Preserve at Georgia Southern began about 9 a.m.

      It was conducted by the university's landscape services team. The annual burn is needed to control underbrush in the Herty Preserve and is a vegetative management tool used to maintain fire dependent ecosystems.

      The low intensity prescribed fire clears the ground of dangerous materials like dead wood and brush and is vital to the life cycles of the forest lands.